


Infinite Automata

by bryozoans



Category: Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: Anal Fingering, Dungeon, Fantasizing, Flashbacks, Light Angst, Light Bondage, M/M, Male Slash, Masturbation, Multiple chapters, Power Dynamics, Robots, Sex, Slash, Swearing, Switching Perspectives, metonic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-05-27 19:00:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15031205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bryozoans/pseuds/bryozoans
Summary: Metal Sonic has been chasing his organic original since the beginning, and continues to chase him despite the physical changes that tribulations and realizations bring. Metal Sonic has become Neo Metal Sonic, with all the power and abilities that doing so has gifted him. Despite this change, he is still chasing Sonic, but his reasons for doing so have changed along with his body.





	1. Catch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheEnigmaMachine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheEnigmaMachine/gifts).



> It's been a while since I've written anything cohesive. This fic is going to be an experiment in my ability to write a longer and more focused work. Each chapter will be in alternating perspective from Neo to Sonic. 
> 
> Please comment about any critique or excitement that my words generated within you. I hope you enjoy and follow in this exercise with me.

Neo Metal Sonic did not usually leave his work to be done by others. Despite being constantly personal when he had been in his former, lesser state, he did not find face to face confrontation distasteful; he craved it even more. Let them see him in his new shining brilliance. Destroy their confidence with intimidation and fearful expectation. The relish derived from those moments would be irresistible. 

He was irritated when one of his robotic vassals returned to tell him the news. 

“I have done it.” The robot stated, “I have captured Sonic the Hedgehog.” 

Neo was unmoved. The robot was very pleased with itself, awaiting praise. That served to irritate Neo more. He detested idiocy. He knew very well it had not been because of the robot’s efforts that the hedgehog had been captured. 

With a swipe of a heavily reinforced forearm tipped with sharpened chrome claws, the robot servant was dashed into pieces against the wall, sparks flying from ruined steel. Cleaner robots immediately began to pick up the scattered shards as Neo’s steps echoed away on the metal floor. 

He could almost sense the hedgehog. The presence of blood and carbon dioxide, warmth not generated by machines or artificial processes. If Neo had possessed scent glands and a tongue, he would have tasted the heat. 

Sonic had been the definition of Metal Sonic since the beginning. When he had been lesser, weaker, and new, he had been blinded by programming and hatred, so strong that it was all he was. He had been a tool then, mastered by an old fool consumed with a fire all his own, and so he spread his obsession to Metal Sonic forcibly. Sonic was the core, the root, the reason for his being. There had been no choice.

He had chased Sonic endlessly. Whether it be combat or speed, endurance or trickery, Metal Sonic had been inferior. Metal Sonic was defeated. Destroyed. Repaired. And the process repeated.

Neo Metal Sonic changed the game. He was smarter, upgraded. Superior. He had destroyed his master and taken control of his destiny. Sonic was no longer his definition. Sonic was no longer tied to him. He had made himself into a creation unto himself. 

If only that had remained true. 

He opened the cell door, the creaking of unoiled hinges loud, bouncing inside the small space beyond. It was dark inside, for Neo and his underlings did not need conventional methods of light to see, and his eyes reflected red and blotchy on the opaque walls. 

Sonic was there against the back wall. He was restrained, his arms tied behind his back, his mouth gagged with one of the implements Neo had supplied his servants with for an instance such as this. The blue fur and spines had been slightly ruffled, and a smear of dirt covered the fine ivory hairs on the hedgehog’s muzzle. The black nose was dry, the corners of the mouth wet around the plastic ball of the gag, and his eyes were looking directly into Neo’s external ocular diodes. The red was reflected in his pupils.

Neo had only heard the term “slut” used on rare occasions when he had been among the Mobian populace. It was derogatory, a slur, and usually used for the females of the race, with Mobian sexuality and cultural norms as the roots of context. He had never been able to find an official definition as Metal Sonic, and he had never thought of the word again afterward, as there was no practical use for such a word in his lexicon. 

Seeing Sonic lying there was one of the strongest moments of understanding that word he had come across yet. 

The door of the cell swung shut as Neo completed his passage through it, a loud click confirming that it had locked behind him. They would not be disturbed. 

Sonic was still looking at him. There was not a singular sign that the hedgehog was afraid or intimidated. Fur was not standing up. Teeth were not bared, eyes not wide, excretory processes not voided. The hedgehog was calm, and as Neo approached, he made the slightest of movements to suggest submission. He adjusted his legs, which were facing Neo, the faded grey of overused red sneaker soles rocking slightly outward, opening the apex of his body to possible attack. Not a thing escaped Neo’s attention. Neo was aware that Sonic knew this fact. 

He was close enough for the diodes to show Sonic’s face in sharp red light, flattening the hedgehog’s features. The moist surface of Sonic’s sclera gave a watery reflection of the perfect red circles, the details of which many did not get to remember. Sonic did not flinch, and his muzzle tilted upward, a drop of saliva falling from the corner of his mouth to the floor. Neo would have to collect it later for analysis. Maybe there were weaknesses hidden in the hedgehog’s genetic code. Neo realized the possibility it would dry before he was finished with the hedgehog. No matter. There were other sources of genetic material to be plundered. 

There was a slick noise as the claw like tip of Neo’s index finger removed the gag, the ball sliding off of Sonic’s tongue, and Sonic drew a quiet breath. 

“Took you long enough, bolt-head.” Neo detested that voice as much as he savored every auditory wave it possessed. The insultory name inspired an urge the grab a fistful of the hedgehog’s spines, but Neo controlled it. It was something that Sonic wanted. Neo would not let him be indulged so easily. 

“And it took my servant no time at all to secure you.” Neo let the gag fall from his finger tip, the strap aligning with the dip in Sonic’s neck, the ball resting where bony clavicles joined in the shape of a shrunken parabola.. There had never been a more fitting collar. “You can understand my surprise.”

“It’s too bad you couldn’t be the one to do it yourself,” Sonic was grinning, sharp little teeth, shining white, “Aren’t you happy to see me?”

Sonic’s heartbeat had increased minutely, and so had his respiration. Neo could hear the fibers of the rope being used as the hedgehog’s bindings creaking with stress, gloved hands clenching and unclenching nervously. Sonic was very good at hiding his intentions from creatures of his design. Neo was no such creature, and of no such design. 

“There is no way that I could be happy with you near me.” It was not necessarily a bluff.

“Then why do you always send me such simple robots?” The fidgeting was increasing. Sonic was getting impatient. He had never been very patient. Neo supposed he himself had never been, either. “You know I get bored easily. And how much I like dares.” 

Neo did know this. Neo knew many things about Sonic. Far more than a nemesis should be allowed to know. 

“They were a joke. And you succumbed to them. How pathetic.” 

Sonic made a flippant little noise, a cross between a laugh and the sound air makes when it is compressed in a small space. It made the sockets inside of Neo’s engine vibrate. 

“We both know the only trickster here is me.”

A gasp is a noise that is emitted to draw a social animal’s attention, to let those outside of the initial being know that something unexpected or involuntary has happened. Sonic’s was sharp against the cell walls as Neo’s fingers curled into the thick spines behind the hedgehog’s skull, skin being pulled tight across the scalp. It was a sound that made something flutter in Neo’s circuitry, the way a magnet swirls iron fillings inside of a clear and pristine glass. The feeling of everything being obfuscated but the one focus in front of him was a feeling that transcended anything a hormone spit from the throes of a gland could possible hope to invoke. 

Sonic’s ear twitched against the metal plating of Neo’s face as speakers activated to whisper inside of it. 

“Is that why you let yourself be captured by something lesser than I?”

The muscles in Sonic’s body responded with a small shiver that Neo’s keen sensors did not miss. Heat was rising from select places of the hedgehog’s anatomy, and a detectable chemical volatilization was surrounding Neo’s face. He secretly and shamefully longed for the organic processes to intake such secretions properly. 

“So you’re not as dumb as you look.” Sonic’s vocal cords had tightened, and his voice was far quieter and strained. He wasn’t looking at Neo anymore, and the color has risen in his face, his nose producing moisture. Neo could feel the spines pressed in his fingers, bent against the metal, and wished he could feel the pain they would have most surely inflicted in flesh. His hands possessed no nerves, only sensors of the most intricate and complex kind. The incorrect kind.

His fingers tightened, the claws scraping sensitive areas and causing the quills to tighten painfully, and Sonic cried out. Neo forced those eyes to his own once more, and the pleasure from seeing opalescent tears, small and precious, in a wantonous gaze that no other living creature in this planet, universe, existence could replicate was nearly authentic. 

“You should not assume things so readily.”


	2. Subdued

Metal’s face tasted like plain shaved ice on a hot summer day: cold, sharp, and refreshing. As Sonic continued to kiss, to lick, to orally fixate on that place where a mouth would have been, the heat began to transfer, and cold was replaced with organic warmth. 

Sonic had not meant to go this far. When he had seen his metallic duplicate that very first time, silent and menacing, thirsting silently for his blood, he had been slightly shaken. It was disquieting, almost immoral, to see his resemblance in Robotnik’s creation. Knowing Eggman and his dastardly ways, and only imagining what horrendous things he must have done to test and refine his newest creation, Sonic should have been disgusted. 

And yet, he wasn’t.

Sonic had the unshakeable belief that there was good in everything. Even in that dumb old Egghead’s stony and fetid heart, there was something redeemable. Metal was no different. Inside of that glittering metal exterior, there was something more. It just needed to be found. 

Being physical about it had revealed nothing. Breaking Metal open only caused him to come back angrier and more ferocious, unstoppable, undeniable. It was all Sonic could do to run away, to be a tease. It was what he was good at.

He had never meant for it to go this far. Not in a million years. 

He pulled away from Metal’s face to breathe, panting air in with large gulps. Metal was firm against him, so much larger than he had originally been. The hedgehog almost wanted it to be more equal again, the odds stacked more evenly. But it couldn’t be that way. They were both too strong willed. It was that exact will that was causing his hands to ache with the need to touch, to be free from gloves and rope so he could feel the hard exterior of Metal’s body, every smooth surface brushed by his fingertips. 

“Metal… Please…” He strained against the ropes demonstratively, whimpering. He knew Metal had left his hands tied on purpose, but it was torture. He wasn’t about to let Metal have his complete and unchecked way. There was no fun in that.

The robot’s left hand continued to hold his spines tightly, the delicious pulling sensation pleasant and nowhere near enough to sate Sonic’s lust, but the other moved from its place on Sonic’s leg to slip its thumb into the knot of the rope. Pressure and skilled maneuvering made quick work of the restraints, and Sonic was free. 

Sonic’s hands smacked hard into the sides of Metal’s face, gloves already flying through the darkness of the room as his bare fingers squeezed for purchase, small and delicate nails clicking on the metal. He pulled Metal to his mouth, pressing it firmly against that same spot, his tongue hard at work, and he felt a pop of sensation on his back as Metal’s right hand rested there and he waited patiently for Sonic to slow his frenzy. 

“Mm, how come you never kiss me back?” Sonic murmured against the wet aluminum, refusing to move his face in case Metal would be cruel with him and prevent him from tasting, his arms hooked loosely around the robot’s wide shoulders. The fingers on Sonic’s back curled, the hard points digging into his skin, and the hedgehog arched hard, whimpering from the sensation. 

“Do not ask such ridiculous questions.” 

Sonic was nothing short of ridiculous. He could have continued to be outrageous if he were not so desperate, and he let the urge to taunt go as Metal’s fingers let up and he was able to relax his back muscles again. He wished those fingers were somewhere else. Somewhere where they could cool the feverish itch inside Sonic’s body, the one Metal had started, and the one only Metal could cure. 

He could remember before, when he would have dreams about the robot chasing him. But instead of running away like he did in real life, he let Metal catch him in those watercolor landscapes, free from Robotnik and shame and rationality, and do as he would. Sonic would wake up sweaty, his body hard between his legs, and would have to bite his hand to keep quiet as he finished those fantasies while awake, so Tails would not hear him. 

He could have never believed such dreams would come true. That was the stuff fairy tales were made out of. 

The feeling of Metal’s hand releasing his quills was real enough though, and his arms being grabbed so his back could be pressed against the cell wall was as vivid as anything. He prayed that this was one of the dreams he didn’t have to wake up from.  
“Metal… hnng…..” Sonic’s body was burning. The need to be filled was driving him blind with desire. Metal was holding him to the wall, had lifted him up like he was nothing. He wanted that feeling to wash all over him. Use me. It soaked through him like water, metaphorically as well as literally, his crotch beginning to feel drippy with expectant need.

“That is no longer my name.” Metal’s voice was quiet and firm, and he was looking directly at Sonic again. Sonic, in his physical state, could hardly look back. Not even facetiously. 

Metal had so hated to be compared to anything he had been in his past. He hated being compared to anything if he wasn’t superior to it, and Sonic knew he considered that original version of himself to be inferior. Sonic could never understand why. The hedgehog had come to find such joy in just glimpsing the flashes of white light on the flat screws of Metal’s cheeks, the prettily curved engine hood, the trim and unspiked waist. But Metal did not see it this way, and he hated it when Sonic used such details against him, seriously or not. That was why Sonic only used it to his advantage when he really needed to, and even then only carefully. 

Thankfully, there was no need to resort to that as Metal’s fingers filled his mouth, smooth and warm, and made saliva practically explode from under his tongue in a rolling wave. He opened his mouth wider, welcoming Metal in, willing to swallow the robot down to his palms if he had to. But Metal only needed the spit, and soon his mouth was painfully empty again. Sonic was not sad for long as he felt the creeping wet fingertips touch the underside of his tail, making every hair on his shoulders stand deliciously on end. 

“Is this where you wish for me to be, hedgehog?” Metal’s voice was so wonderful, and yet the tone annoyed Sonic with what it implied. Metal’s own attempts at teasing. 

“Yes, Metal, I want--”

“That is not my name.” 

Sonic would have kicked him if he hadn’t been pinned as he was, and all of the blood rushing out of his head probably would have made him too weak to try, anyway.

“Oh, fuck, Metal, Neo, please…”

“I should deprive you.” This was more of Metal’s teasing; Sonic could tell by the robot’s rhythm in his speech, even though his voice was low and menacing. That was the advantage of knowing Metal well: Nothing came as a true surprise. But as Sonic felt those fingers slip the smallest of centimeters away from the aching center of his desire, it made his stomach fall far harder than any death-defyingly steep downhill city rail ever had.

“Metal--Neo, no, please…” pinned under Metal’s other arm, he squirmed erratically, his face and his voice begging, “Please… please fuck me…”

Metal looked as if he were going to ponder the decision, and it made Sonic languish with tortured delay. Then the robot pressed his muzzle to Sonic’s shoulder, as if he were kissing it. 

“I will spare you this time.”

The feeling of Metal’s fingers slipping inside of him, stretching flesh and making nerves explode in chaotic firecracker fashion, was something Sonic felt he would die without. The sensation of being filled, of being owned, was far more satisfying than any form of sexual gratification. Although the sexual gratification was most definitely a perk. 

Sonic could not help throwing his head back against the wall, mouth open as he began to moan loudly and longingly. One of his hands had grabbed Metal’s arm for support, the wiry muscles standing out as the limb began to shake with exertion. He could feel those clawed tips, sharp and deliberate inside of him, pressing against nerves so perfectly it made Sonic gasp and shiver uncontrollably. Another thing about Metal was that he happened to have a terrifyingly good memory about every overly sensitive inch inside of Sonic’s body, each nerve a landmine on a familiar and beloved map, and he avoided every single one to drag out Sonic’s physical torment.

“You’re so mean to me,” Sonic’s voice keened, and he wanted so badly to feel those fingers thrusting inside of him, so hard that he would be bruised and tender later. He tried to flex his hips to create friction, but Metal immediately put a stop to that with a hand around Sonic’s neck, the ball of the forgotten gag pressing hard into his throat. 

“I will be far more ruthless if you refuse to cooperate.” Sonic’s lower body felt melty as the words flowed through his ears, the hand around his throat so _good_ and _right_. He wished Metal would be more ruthless and fuck him into next Tuesday already. The muscles in his body were already clenching erratically to feel those fingers deeper inside, and the hedgehog’s sex, pink and hard and wet, had started to poke from the damp fur between his legs. Something needed to be done. This would never end if they were to be on Metal’s time. 

Sonic smiled into that menacing face, that face he had come to enjoy seeing, and he began to roll his hips, flexible back and leg muscles working in his favor to do so in his compromised position. Stretching for his entire life was proving useful after all. His voice whispered out from between Metal’s fingers, and he could feel them tighten the slightest bit when he spoke.

“Punish me for being bad, then.”


	3. 0 State

Neo usually prided himself on his self control. He was not organic, and therefore not at the mercy of simple endocrine systems that prompted emotions and ostentatious actions as consequence of those emotions. Neo Metal Sonic was finely engineered to keep his composure. He was singular and also complex, a machine that ran with no need of emotional output or input, and even if this thought process made him seem supercilious, he was not supercilious, for he was truly superior. 

This did not mean he could not become angry. Just because there was no need for emotions did not mean that they did not happen, however inorganic their development was. Sonic had become very, very skilled at wringing these reactions out of him, and that’s what he had done now. Neo’s wiring may as well have been hidden inside of a glass carapace, for how vulnerable and transparent he truly was to Sonic’s ministrations, in voice and action. 

He squeezed Sonic’s neck hard, and the fingers on his other hand curled viciously inside of Sonic’s body, his claws tearing through upper layers of delicate epithelial tissues. The sharp, strangled cry that issued forth from Sonic’s throat confirmed pain, and the hedgehog’s face twisted in discomfort, his legs squeezing involuntarily together, the knees almost closing on Neo’s left elbow joint. Neo could feel the breath in Sonic’s trachea, each pant a pleasant push against the sensors in his hand. He could feel Sonic’s pulse too, and the rate was at a tantalizing 138 BPM. Light pain had always been something arousing for the hedgehog, and Neo intended to use it to his advantage in excess. 

“I will punish you, all right,” Neo murmured, the real anger from Sonic’s disobedience back in control once more. Now he would play. 

Sonic’s eyes had teared up again at the pain that Neo had inflicted inside of him, but he was still smiling. It made Neo’s machinery tremble with delicious want. Desire was a delicacy for him, and the hedgehog had never failed to be an endless source of pleasure, ripe and bursting with flavor that Neo would never truly taste, but could most certainly employ in imagination. Sonic’s lacrimal glands secreting fluid was one of these fine morsels of instigation, and once again Neo wished he had a tongue, so he could taste the sodium chloride honestly, as it was meant to be. 

There was no time to be caught up in meaningless wishing. Sonic was in his hands, present, solid, tantalizingly real. Neo did not understand concepts of past or future viscerally; time was a continuous flow, and while he could envision a predetermined time on the calendar, say, the 26th day of the month of January, year 3084, the information meant nothing to him personally. But he remembered when he had been inferior, and he remembered chasing Sonic and what happened after the chasing. And Sonic had always been so maddeningly out of reach. 

When Metal Sonic had failed at catching his organic copy (and he always had ultimately failed) he would take to destroying other things to compensate for his faulty emotional centers in his circuitry. Dr. Robotnik had disliked this behavior, and treated it much as someone would treat their bothersome pet who was destroying the furniture: he punished Metal Sonic for breaking things. 

One of these punishments was seclusion. The robot would be placed inside of a container only big enough to stand in, but not have the ability to move or turn around. And when the door was shut, darkness. Quiet. Void. There was no specific time limit, as Metal Sonic had always kept track of every tedious and torturous second, but it consisted of a range from a minimum of four hours, two minutes and thirty-five seconds to a maximum of ninety-five hours, eighteen minutes and fifty-seven seconds. There was no correlation between offense and punishment, and Neo believed that the longer durations were that the scientist had simply forgotten about his creation, locked inside of a box in the dark. Robots did not feel fear, but Metal Sonic had felt a certain apprehension at being locked in that box forever. Awake. Conscious.

Another of these punishments, however, far exceeded the others in meaning and effectiveness. Dr. Robotnik had only committed it once, and that had been very shortly before Neo had torn Metal Sonic’s existence to pieces and created himself from the remains. If Neo had had enough questioning and freeness of mind in his nature, he could have looked at this event in his existence as the turning point to his fundamental change. But he did not enquire with himself. His decisions were absolute. 

Neo was very aware of death. It was something that came as a corollary to being alive, an opposite, and one greatly feared by organic things. From what Neo understood, expiration had been the primary motivator in billions upon billions of years of evolution, the driving force that caused animals, plants, and other lowly organisms to reproduce, to adapt, to keep on living after death. He understood the fundamental meaning as well as any robot with a flexible vocabulary could, but he could not feel it. He could not empathize, and he did not care to empathize. Death was as inferior as life. He did not want to experience, and had no intention of seeking a way to do so. 

Robotnik had brought him very close, against his will. 

A zero state is when a system is not producing outputs. All robots have a zero state, and in this, Metal Sonic was included. To a layman, a zero state can be seen as turning something off. For example, a television set. The zero state of a television set is when it is turned off, while the television set being turned on results in many outputs of many variables. With this example, one may assume that Metal Sonic had an operable off switch, and one would not be wrong. 

Neo found time impersonal, but even his circuitry jumped at the remembrance of being in a zero state; or rather, the absence of remembrance. In Neo’s endless calendar, including all of the information he had ever processed, inwards or outwards, through his systems, the zero state was a black mark of emptiness. There was no information. There was no input and no output. Sonic had once explained what sleep was like, how there was a sense of time passing, even though it wasn’t the normal passage of time. It’s like closing your eyes for a few moments, under a really heavy blanket, and then you throw the blanket off and open your eyes and that’s what being awake is. Neo knew, even without truly understanding Sonic’s explanation, that the zero state was nothing similar to sleep.

What he recalled best was becoming aware after the zero state, and it had been like a jump in placement. He had wondered if his ocular system had malfunctioned momentarily, shifting from operational to faulty and back again. He had sifted through his memory storage, looking for the cause of failure, looking for the lost time, only finding what he already had seen. Robotnik scolding him fiercely after failing to capture the hedgehog again; the sudden jump to an empty room, his chassis covered in dust, everything very quiet. Then he had checked the calendar, trying to make sense of the illogical. 

“Metal..?”

Neo returned to himself immediately at the sound of that voice. He had been lost deeply in thought, and the look on Sonic’s face was of serious concern, all playfulness and lasciviousness gone. The red ball in the cradle of his clavicles was dry. 

“I apologize.” It was the only thing Neo could formulate as a response. He was struggling to fold the memories back into their respective places in his data, as if Sonic would see them through the diodes. He would not let Sonic see. 

“It’s okay,” Sonic was pouting, one eyebrow raised. The hedgehog’s genitals had wilted, and Neo found this the most embarrassing detail. To forget he was touching Sonic, had Sonic in his hands, and turning to the past. It was unfathomable. He was disgusted with himself. He quickly pulled his fingers from Sonic’s body, and Sonic winced, obviously removed from the pleasure he had been experiencing there. 

“It is not okay,” Neo’s voice was firm. He refused to look at the situation he had created and then promptly neglected, right there in his hands. 

“Metal, hey, look at--” 

But the sudden noise and abrasive red light of the alarms interrupted Sonic, and Neo focused on something actionable to express his rage at, most certainly outside of himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello darlings. It's been a while, but I have slowly been working on this chapter for the past few, long months. If you have also noticed, I have changed the title of this story to "Infinite Automata". No, this is not an allusion to Infinite the Jackal from Sonic Forces. 
> 
> Please enjoy and leave any feelings or thoughts you have toward my work in the comments. <3


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